


Deleted Scenes and Might-Have-Beens

by Thimblerig



Series: The Lion and the Serpent [47]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Snippet FIc, Work Amnesty - Unfinished and Discontinued, redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 15:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12390636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: A sparring match that is not about swordplay, conversations that never happened, or maybe did where we couldn't hear, Athos' non-existent hangover, and why Aramis now fights left-handed.





	Deleted Scenes and Might-Have-Beens

**Author's Note:**

> _Much of the early planning for this series was: “That’d be a Cool Scene. *write write* Now how do I make it fit with the plot?” Which certainly helped to keep me interested, magpie that I am, but sometimes… my Cool Scenes just didn’t fit with the rest of what was going on. I could occasionally raid them for good lines, but still grieved._
> 
> _If you’re interested, some of them have been unearthed for your enjoyment…_

**Swashbuckling With Intent**

_Aramis ended up a lot more frail, when he reached the army camp in Kindness, then I’d originally planned. His discreet faint and the peaceful waking up with Athos (and explanation of San Sebastian) was something I liked a lot - but here’s the original:_

“Some of us have been _fighting,”_ muttered d'Artagnan, “not sleeping our way across Europe.”

Aramis tilted back his head and blinked slowly. “I once spent three whole weeks in a featherbed,” he said sweetly, “hand fed dainties by a gracious lady.”

D’Artagnan snarled silently and let the tent flap fall behind him.

“Stop baiting the boy,” said Athos.

“He ruffles my feathers,” said Aramis, smiling with his lips.

Athos said nothing, but unhooked two swords from his weapon rack and left the tent.

Aramis blinked slowly, then rose from his chair and followed. He found Athos in the square of packed earth where they ran training sessions between engagements with the enemy. “I’ve a sharp tongue I know,” he said, temporising.

“Time to work off the pudding,” said Athos, tossing the rapier. “If you will.”

Aramis caught it by the hilt with his left hand, and the parrying dagger that followed. He crossed the blades in a quick salute.

“Were we lovers?” he asked curiously, advancing with a series of feints and attempted binds.

“No,” answered Athos, moving easily. If he was bothered by facing a left-handed fencer, he did not let it show. His eyes grew thoughtful, as he did something serpentine with his foil and the pair swung around each other, “In retrospect, that is what you were hinting about, the first year of our acquaintance.” He shrugged. “I can be very stupid about some things.”

“The boy isn't wrong,” said Aramis, retreating for a moment, using a fancy Italian twist of the blades to cover his movement. “I ate pretty fancy for most of the year. Slept under hedgerows the odd time but… four-poster beds. Drinking chocolate and ambergris not… fighting the squits because the camp latrines were too close to the cook tents. I knew where my orders came from… and I argued them plenty when I had cause. I never got crammed with fifty... others in an infirmary with the... disease miasma rising.”

“You remember soldiering.”

“Oh yes.”

They fought with only the clash of blades holding conversation for a time, then, “A lot of what we did was just plain… fun, playing fox and rabbit games.... one step ahead of the wind. We had to steal our sunshine but, damn, we stole great heaping handfuls of it.”

“You have improved fighting on your left,” Athos remarked, shuffling to the side before executing a series of lightning strikes which Aramis parried, barely, with the off hand.

Aramis looked pleased. “Tutoring your wife,” he said. “She favours the... sinister side when she... can. One makes do.”

After ten minutes Aramis conceded the match, and laid down his weapons, half wheezing, half laughing, “I give over… oh captain… have mercy on this... poor mortal.”

“You've lost your wind,” said Athos dryly.

Aramis acknowledged it with a shrug and a smile. “Been… hard to stay… in proper training… of late. You know how it is.”

Athos raised one eyebrow, tick. “Hands up,” he ordered.

Aramis complied, still half laughing, lifting his hands to shoulder height and waggling his fingers.

“Higher.”

Aramis raised an eyebrow of his own but did so, lifting his hands to head height. Athos gestured upwards with his fingers and Aramis put the laugh away. He lifted his right hand an inch higher, then sighed, reached over with his left, and used that to hoist his right arm straight. “You're a sharp one,” he said ruefully.

Athos stalked forward and pulled a fistful of Aramis’ shirt out of his waistband. “I'm starting to... reconsider that ‘no’ of yours,” said Aramis, grinning.

Athos huffed noncommittally as he pulled the shirt up around Aramis’ shoulders. Absent the sweaty linen Aramis was as scrawny as a stripling who had had his first growth spurt. He turned his head as Athos prowled around, and added, “People may start to talk, my... dear Captain.”

Athos found what he’d been looking for and stopped, his fingers lifting to touch the new scar set among Aramis’ ribs, small, livid red under the sweat slick, sitting under the right arm. “Three weeks in a feather bed,” he said, “being fed dainties.”

Aramis stepped away, letting arms and shirt fall. “Kitty was more cranky than gracious... by the end of it I'll admit,” he said, leaning against a post, “but her restorative soup was truly delicious. I… still lost a lot of form from the experience. Nicked a lung in a fight. I was… fucking lucky.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” said Athos, picking up the dropped weapons. “How did it happen?”

Aramis let his head fall against the post. “San Sebastian,” he sighed.

“And that was?”

He shut his eyes. “The end of the world.”

 

**

 

**The Hodja Requests Enlightenment**

_I raided other literature for some of my characters and plots. This comes from one of the tales of Nasreddin Hodja, a Turkish folk hero, quite likely based on a real teacher from the 12th century. I couldn’t find the exact story I was ~~honouring~~ stealing, but if you’re interested here’s a link to some of the others: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hodja.html_

In the one-room house, the sleeping man against the far wall grunted and shifted in his slumber. Keeping his peace, Aramis riffled through a heavy wooden trunk, feeling his way in the dark with sensitive fingers.

“Friend,” he heard then, “can you strike a light?”

Aramis froze. “Er… why?”

The elderly voice continued cheerfully, “That I might better see you to praise you, who can find in the dark what I cannot in the light, however hard I try.”

That seemed fair. Aramis shut the trunk, retrieved flint and a sprinkle of tinder from a belt pouch, and did as he was bid. “This isn't the house of Nasreddin the Jewel Thief?” he asked the old man revealed by the light.

“No, I'm Nasreddin the Hodja,” he answered. “Nasreddin the Jewel Thief has money.”

“Yes, I know, which is why I was paying him a visit.”

“... He has five children to feed, and an ailing sister.”

“I'm just trying to retrieve a particular tiara,” Aramis said soothingly. “It has sentimental value.”

 

**

 

**The Dwarfess**

_I really wanted to do a proper story set in the court of Spain with Diego Velasquez the painter, his slave/assistant Juan de Pareja (who became a successful independent painter), and some of the hundred dwarfs present in the court at the time. I never really got a plot going, though, so all that was written is a short scene with the somewhat anachronistic Maribarbola._

The German dwarfess Maribarbola, favourite of the Queen of Spain, was allotted, among other preferments, a ration of ice for each day of summer. Liking her dainties she had long apportioned some for the preparation of sorbets. But also…

Hands gentle and sure, Aramis d’Alameda the barber wrapped chipped ice in soft napkins and packed it around her swollen knees and ankles, as she reclined on the daybed. She blinked drowsily at the gentle tawny-amber light coming through the tall window of her private chamber. In a corner, by her walking stick, the great mastiff Berthe slapped her tail sleepily against the tile.

“There are herbal preparations that can be of assistance,” he said softly, “though no doubt you are aware of them, senorita.”

She gestured lazily to a cut glass goblet that sat on a small table beside her. “I have something.”

Aramis frowned at the bitter odour of the contents that glowed red-brown through the cut crystal. “Do the dreams trouble you?”

“Not particularly. You?”

“I don't need laudanum for that.” He watched her drain the goblet.

“Speak,” she said, eyes hooded, with the voice that had counselled royalty.

“Sometimes I dream I am a dead man, in the cold and dark of hell, with nothing to do but chat with the devil,” he confessed.

“What does he tell you?” she asked drowsily.

“Scripture.” She laughed. “Sometimes he explains how the world works and I hate him, for there is no light in it, only levers.”

“That’s the devil for you.” She flicked her hand. “Vade retro, sathanas.” He caught her hand and kissed her short fingers.

 

**

 

**Constance**

_I’d planned out some scenes for Constance at the army camp before realising, with regret, that she’d have cut through the web of misunderstanding and imperfect revelations very, very quickly, and my story would be a lot shorter. Even so:_

"You've gotten sly since you went away," said Constance, as she loaded her pistol. "I can't say I care for it."

"I am sorry for that," said Aramis.

She shrugged. "It is what it is." Sighting down the barrel she breathed in, breathed out, and fired. A green glass bottle on the low wall exploded. "I've been at Court too long. Plain speaking is something I crave."

"Well then," he said, tipping black powder down the arabesqued barrel of his own gun. "Were we friends?"

She tilted her head, and her long bright-dark hair rustled over her shoulders. "We were amiable," she said consideringly. "Mostly I knew you through Athos and d'Artagnan. You were ever so nice when there was running and shooting and screaming and that." She smiled, half bitter and half sad, "and when I was having trouble with my husband - not d'Artagnan, Bonacieux-god-rest-him - I used to see you passing through the market every week or so." She mimed touching the brim of a hat. "You and your fancy lace shirts."

“How did we meet?” he asked curiously.

"Well, _d'Artagnan_ kissed me on the street without a by-your-leave and then he wanted directions to the Musketeer garrison so he could kill Athos. They worked it out."

Grinning like a wolf, Aramis said, "I'm going to like you lot. And the good Captain?"

Constance looked furtively left and right, then leaned in and whispered in his ear. He laughed. "I promise I won't pass that on."

Her brows wrinkled, and she looked at him thoughtfully. "How do you feel about us all knowing? With the..." she waved her hand vaguely.

"Exposed. Pinned."

"I am sorry for that."

He shrugged. "It is what it is."

She looked at the low brick wall surrounded with smashed glass. "What do you say we make this more interesting?"

**

"There is something you aren't telling me," he said later, when they were done with shooting at bottles on swinging ropes, or seen only in mirrors, or over the other’s shoulder. "Something important."

"Yes," she said frankly. "But I have no idea how to tell it properly right now so you're going to have to wait."

**

_Aaaaaaand after d’Artagnan and Aramis have a slightly awkward conversation about all the time Aramis is spending with her._

D'Artagnan rolled his shoulders angrily. “Then he made out that if he didn’t talk to Constance… _bad things_ would happen.”

Porthos laughed. “Your lady does have an impressive backhand.”

“No,” answered d'Artagnan thoughtfully, rubbing a knuckle across his lips. “He used the word ‘report’, like she was an officer.”

Porthos rubbed his chin and said, slowly, “She introduced herself as ‘the Queen’s confidante an’ private messenger,’ now that I think about it. What does that mean to you?”

“That the queen trusts her, of course.”

“An’ to someone who's been up to his neck in intrigue, that'd mean…” Porthos paused, following the thought, “that the queen trusts her with her… _private_ messages. An’ her secrets. Right?”

“Constance isn't a spy!”

“I'm not saying she is,” said Porthos soothingly. “Just that, if someone wants the Queen's ear, maybe they start to think, Constance is who they should be speaking to first… Your lady has probably heard some pretty wild talk by now.”

“You think he's trying to get a message to the Queen? You think he remem-”

“Don't say it! But maybe he thinks Constance has the weight of a royal command behind her. He's trying to find a place - he'd be careful of who he annoys…” Porthos huffed a laugh. “Maybe he just likes talking to bossy ladies.”

“Don't call my wife bossy.”

“As you like, kid. But… maybe Constance _does_ have the weight of a royal command behind her.”

“You knew -” D’Artagnan wheeled and glared at Athos. “When you suggested I put her name forward to the Queen, you _knew_ this would happen!”

“If she survived.” There was no apology in Athos’ eyes. “The Queen has had no intimates at court since the Duchess de Chevreuse, and that lady was… wild. Should I not seek to put a woman with a spine of steel, a kind heart, and proficiency with weapons next to what should be the most powerful woman at court?

“If Constance had been a man I would have recruited her long since. She was loyal, and desperate to be useful.”

_In retrospect, d’Artagnan’s awkwardness with the possibility that Constance has a more important job than he does makes him look like a colossal dick. Given, most of this is that Aramis really pisses him off, but… just as well this bit didn’t make it in. And one more bit of Aramis-Constance bonding:_

**

“Was it bad?”

“I used to lie awake in the night watches, wondering what man, on the morrow, would walk in my shoes. It has given me some perspective on ‘bad’.”

Constance made a small sound in her throat.

“It is wrong to think, ‘Have I suffered enough?’” said Aramis calmly. “It is wrong to ask God ‘Have I worked off my sins?’ God keeps His own account books, and they are not for our eyes. There is a peace in submission.” He smiled crookedly. “Though at times I had to struggle to find it.”

Constance covered his hand. He met her eyes. “What punishment of God is not a gift?” he asked.

 

**

 

**Athos’ Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hangover vs Aramis’ Sexual Morals**

_CW: Discussion of past and present consent issues. This was predicated on Aramis being a bit more energetic and *even flirtier* with King Louis, *and* Athos losing his last frayed nerve and going on a bender. (He surprised me in the series, with his ability to stay off the sauce, and to stay patient with an immensely frustrating friend. I like surprises!) There’s also a hint of clue-dropping as to the Dead Men reveal, but it’s ridiculously obscure and would probably just have annoyed you all at the time._

Aramis could smell, even from outside Athos’ tent, the sour wine. The reek of it, when he lifted the canvas flap, was like a slap in the face. Late in the day as it was, little light shone through the canvas, and no candles were lit. Somewhere in the shadows, he saw a figure move, awkwardly, like a sick lion gone to lair.

“The boy has no doubt been filling your ears with a highly coloured account of this afternoon's dealings,” he announced. Athos did not answer, but Aramis heard a shift of his weight and the pop of a bottle cork.

He straightened his white shirt cuffs, where they peeked from under his black sleeves, lifted his head, and walked into the warm dark fug.

Sitting down, resting his elbows primly on the table, he added. “I think you are infected with that most pernicious of maladies: questions to which you cannot like the answers.”

The hulk in the shadows did not move.

“I believe you are wondering whether I would allow the king to take me to bed, in order to smooth out a complication. It would not, and I shall not.

“If things _could_ be made simpler by it? I have good authority that the man is passable if matched with an experienced dancing-partner. It barely merits an entry on the rubric of things I might jib at.”

He found a glass bottle lying on its side on the rug, its little bloated belly still holding a little wine. He sniffed it, winced, then poured it into a passably clean cup and sipped gingerly.

“I believe you are wondering how much of this… perspective… was beaten or trained into me by recent events, or whether I, your old friend, was always like this. I gather from the soldiers’ gossip that I had quite a reputation; I believe you have been recalling some of those incidents to your mind's eye, searching them for clues, second-guessing your own actions and beliefs. As to the truth, Captain, I cannot say. I regret giving you cause to be disappointed in me.”

“And I believe you are thinking of your own marriage, of a summer on the estate of Pinon and a field where the tasselled grass grew long and long and the wildflowers sprang up secretly. And you ask yourself, _Was it that she was buying safety? With the only coin she had?”_

Athos stirred in the darkness. One baleful eye caught a flicker from a last scrap of daylight coming in.

He said very gently, “She loved you, Captain.” He sighed. “It would not fester so, else. That is a truth for you.” He sipped again from the bitter cup. “In return I have a question, and I ask for your honesty: if the proof of her crimes had been handed to you absent the - your brother's blood, would you have stood by her or turned her out the door, like Griselda, in her shift? Or…”

Athos said, voice grating, “I cannot say.”

Aramis nodded.

Athos lunged out of the darkness and seized a hank of Aramis’ hair, at the back where the scalp was still sore and tender after all this time. “That - hurts,” gritted Aramis.

“Your Latin has improved,” rasped Athos. “Why?”

Aramis blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Athos’ head tipped forward so their foreheads met. “I'm sorry,” he muttered, _“I'msorryi’msorryI’msorry…”_

“It's not your fault,” said Aramis helplessly.

 

**

 

**The Fencing Lesson**

_I enjoyed this for the philosophy Aramis and Milady espoused, but it wasn’t nearly long enough to stand on its own, and I couldn’t quite work it as an opening to some other plotline._

"Again," Aramis said calmly, as Madame’s foil rolled away over the flagstones of the innyard. It was very early morning, before the sun rose or witnesses hopped about to ask impertinent questions. It was before Madame’s coffee, and she was irritable with it.

"Carrying a visible weapon changes the narrative,” Madame answered, stalking to retrieve it. “Violence is more likely and I've already lost the first strike. _This,”_ she spat, clutching the hilt and holding it away as if it were a hissing snake, "this is _visible.”_

"People drop weapons all the time," he said, "and there is a specific range of efficacy that you are neglecting, Madame. Again."

"If swords come out I've already lost the game," she snapped.

"Not necessarily. Again," he said, face impassive.

She swore at him.

"Was that Arabic? Again."

The maid, Kitty, looked up from the pile of cloth she was mending in the corner of the innyard. _"Stop looking at her legs,”_ she snapped. _“It isn't proper."_

Half an hour later, when colours painted the horizon and sweat draggled her severely braided hair, dampening her muslin shirt to her short stays, she sheathed the foil at last. “Coffee,” she said briefly to the maid, who scurried off.

“Tomorrow morning, then,” she said, stalking up to Aramis.

He smiled slightly and bowed, with his fingers spread on his chest. “If it pleases Madame,” he answered.

She smiled sweetly, patted his cheek, and walked away. He lifted a hand to his throat, where red came away on his hand, and laughed with delight.

 

**

 

And this is where I awkwardly shill my other work. *cough*

I’m trying to finish the two-thirds of a novel I did for NaNoWriMo off in the Original Work section. (If you’re only interested in my fanfic well-and-good, I’m glad we had fun together.) But if you want to check out a longish story with children switched at birth, an opera house, flying machines, swamp witches, doctors, murderous painters, demimondaines, some really complicated familial dynamics, plus _a say in how it all ends…_ I can offer you Jonathon Lily, here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12390597/chapters/28191498


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